Värtsilä was located in the province of Eastern Finland and was part of the North Karelia region.

The main language spoken in Värtsilä is Finnish but new settlers from Russia and people evacuated from the lost Karelian areas after the Second World War form Russian and Karelian speaking minorities.

In addition to the current village, Värtsilä used to include the urban settlement of Vyartsilya (Russian: Вяртсиля), which since 1944 has belonged to Russia.

[1] In 1679, Nils Kagg sent his inspector Sven Stille to demand taxes from the peasants in Tohmajärvi that had not paid it, however, in Värtsilä, Sven was met with a mob of angry peasants, who threatened him and his family until he was forced to flee.

The amount of resistance that the peasants gave the troops is not known, and two of the leaders were executed.